Formal Leadership Positions Research Articles

Making the transition: staff nurse to front-line nurse leader.

This paper discusses the challenges that staff nurses face when moving into formal Leadership positions. Current transition strategies for nurses are presented, including a critical analysis of organizational and individual factors that enhance or impede the transition to front-line nurse leadership positions. Recommendations outline essential practices, resources available and support networks that enable a smooth transition into these positions. Reflections on the author's personal transition to a front-line nurse leadership position are included.

A Longitudinal Study of the Leadership Development Process: Individual Differences Predicting Leader Effectiveness

This study tracked the leadership development of 236 male cadets from matriculation through graduation at a military college. Cognitive ability, physical fitness, prior influence experiences, and self-esteem measured in Year I were relevant to predicting those who assumed formal leadership positions in Year 4. Physical fitness and prior influence experiences measured when cadets entered the college predicted leader effectiveness rated in their fourth year. Stress tolerance and moral reasoning levels did not predict leader emergence or effectiveness, though the set of individual difference measures significantly predicted emergence and effectiveness. Physical fitness levels and moral reasoning increased over time for all cadets, though surprisingly, levels of self-esteem and stress tolerance did not increase over time. Overall the study demonstrated that leadership effectiveness and emergence could be predicted from early measures of individual differences.

Engendered Encounters: Men of the Church and the “Church of Women” in Maasailand, Tanzania, 1950–1993

A significant paradox of the missionary endeavor in many parts of Africa, as elsewhere, is the preponderance of female adherents to Christianity, despite concerted efforts by most mainstream missionary groups to convert men.Theoretical or comparative studies of missionization, conversion, or religious experience and change which have informed this article include Beidelman (1974), Etherington (1977), King (1995), Holden (1983), Bowie (1993), Rafael (1993), Blakeley, Van Beek and Thomson (1994), Swatos (1994), Shaw (1995), Kipp (1995), and Spear and Kimambo (1999). “Again and again in a mission history,” notes Adrian Hastings, “the early significant baptisms were mostly of women” (Hastings 1993:112).In her history of Christianity in Africa, Elizabeth Isichei (1995) corroborates Hastings' findings, as does much of the ethnographic and historical literature on missionization in Africa (e.g. Barrett 1968:148; Landau 1995:197; Hastings 1993:112–114). Although not self-evident, such an outcome is of course more understandable for missionary groups who tried to convert and train African women to be the “good wives and mothers” necessary for the propagation of the Christian family and the “domestic” duties of the Christian home (Gaitskell 1979, Hunt 1990, Labode 1993, Kanogo 1993). Certainly this has been the case among Maasai in Tanzania, even though Catholic missionaries from the Congregation of the Holy Ghost have spent over forty years trying to evangelize Maasai men. In vain they tried to convert men first through schools, then in their homesteads, and finally in individual instruction classes. Maasai women were restricted from attending school, tolerated but not encouraged to attend homestead instruction and services, and dissuaded from holding formal leadership positions in the church. Despite these gender-based evangelization strategies and objectives, however, significantly more Maasai women than men have sought instruction and baptism in the Catholic church. Conversion to Catholicism was never easy for these women, as they had to overcome not only the reluctance of the missionaries but also the objections of their husbands and fathers. Yet they persevered, and now constitute the majority of practicing Catholics. Intent on creating Christian communities premised on male leadership and patriarchal authority, the men of the church have instead facilitated the creation of a “church of women.”

A Longitudinal Study of the Leadership Development Process: Individual Differences Predicting Leader Effectiveness

This study tracked the leadership development of236 male cadets from matriculation through graduation ata military college. Cognitive ability, physical fitness,prior influence experiences, and self-esteem measured in Year 1 were relevant to predictingthose who assumed formal leadership positions in Year 4.Physical fitness and prior influence experiencesmeasured when cadets entered the college predicted leader effectiveness rated in their fourthyear. Stress tolerance and moral reasoning levels didnot predict leader emergence or effectiveness, thoughthe set of individual difference measures significantly predicted emergence and effectiveness. Physicalfitness levels and moral reasoning increased over timefor all cadets, though surprisingly, levels ofself-esteem and stress tolerance did not increase over time. Overall the study demonstrated thatleadership effectiveness and emergence could bepredicted from early measures of individualdifferences.

Sick and tired of being sick and tired: black women's health activism in America, 1890-1950

Black health activism in the United States emerged at a time when the American welfare state was expanding and black rights were decreasing. From 1890 to 1950, a period of legalized segregation, many African Americans saw their struggle for improved health conditions as part of a political agenda for black rights, especially the right to equal access to government resources. Although it was difficult for a group with little influence on government to affect public policy, black activists struggled to draw federal attention to black health issues. They tried to make the health needs of black America a legitimate political concern for the nation. With great caution they entered the debate on the role of the state in the care of its citizens. Black health reform was gendered to the extent that held most of the formal leadership positions and women did most of the grassroots organizing. Much like the black civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, men led, but women organized. 1 Black played an important role in the black health movement as doctors,ministers,journalists, businessmen, and educators. Yet, men's leadership often came and went, while women's grassroots activity persisted.

Cross-Situational Consistency and Perceptual Accuracy in Leadership

The trait approach to leadership has long been abandoned. The prevailing belief, based primarily on two early reviews of the research examining the personality differences between leaders and nonleaders (by Mann and Stogdill) and on the interpretation of certain rotation design studies of leadership, is that contingency theories of leadership best explain the phenomenon. However, some current research has been more favorable to the trait approach. The present research examined cross-situational stability in leadership by having leaders (people who held current formal leadership positions) interact with nonleaders on four tasks that required social organization and coordination. As predicted, stability in leadership across the four tasks and some evidence for consistency across groups were found, as was a high level of consensus and accuracy in perceptions of leadership.

Leadership Perceptions and Voting Behavior in a One-Party Legislative Body

Studies of leadership often have suggested that the attributed to an individual by other members of a political institution may have an effect on the decisions and votes of the members. In studying legislative decision making, for example, considerable attention has been devoted to recognized leaders, who may or may not hold major legislative offices.' Yet, assertions regarding the of recognized leaders on legislative decisions seldom have been examined by relating leadership perceptions to legislative behavior. Relatively little research on legislative leadership has employed both survey data and roll-call votes. Despite the difficulty of comparing the two measures, some evidence has indicated that influence attribution indices are related to factual indices derived from official legislative records.2 A study of influential legislators nominated in a survey of the Indiana Senate found that a measure of general was significantly related to an index combining the number of sponsored bills passed and the number of formal leadership positions achieved. General